


The Grand Canyon

by jaytodds



Series: Obikin Soulmate AUs [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Earth, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-01
Updated: 2016-03-01
Packaged: 2018-05-24 01:59:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6137380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaytodds/pseuds/jaytodds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the prompt: "When someone's heart breaks, so does a piece of the world; this creates fissures, valleys, and even cracks in the pavement. Tell the story behind the Grand Canyon."<br/>Obi-Wan fights Anakin as the world falls apart beneath them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Grand Canyon

This planet is new. The star it revolves around was born yesterday – or so it seems in comparison to the vast infinity of emotion this man holds for the one he’s followed here. The ground is smooth now, but when he lands his ship, the man can sense only darkness. For the moment, Earth is pristine.

 

The first ship that landed here settled into the dust of the dry world. The man that stepped off the ship was young, too. He was passion, fear, desperation, as volatile as the magma bubbling just beneath the surface he tread upon. His black robes swirled in the whipping winds, hair matted with sweat to his furrowed brow.

 

The second ship to land carries a man who is older, wiser, but blind to the idea that his wisdom is composed of fragile lies. His desperation matches the man he followed, but his face is stony, the creases in his visage deepened by betrayal. He steps slowly, weighed down by the heaviness of his mission.

This boy - this man - was his world, now he is nothing more than the enemy he swore to eradicate. He pauses a short distance from the young Jedi.

 

“Anakin,” he calls, pleading. “What have you done? Don’t you see what you’ve become?”

“I’ve brought peace, justice, freedom, and security to my new Empire.” His hands are balled into tight fists. “I wouldn’t expect a _Jedi_ to understand.” Anakin spits the words as if it tasted of vinegar. Obi-Wan suspects it tasted of the bitterness of despair.

“Please, Anakin, remember what we had.” The Jedi master stops himself from reaching out to grasp at his former padawan’s shoulder.

“We had nothing.”

The words stab through Kenobi like no lightsaber ever could. Beneath them, the ground trembles and groans, beginning to split. Anakin tries to ignore this, but as he turns away from the only man he ever trusted, the man who utterly betrayed him, the ground divides further.

“Anakin-”

“Don’t,” the young man seethes, “make me kill you.”

“I have heard that before, but I never believed I would hear it from you.” Obi-Wan shrugs out of his robe, letting it slip to the ground and fall without his usual dramatic flourish. He is too tired.

Anakin turns his head to glare with bloodshot eyes in Kenobi’s direction.

“Please…”

“Stop!” Anakin ignites his sabre as he whips around, the blue plasma flaring between them.

Obi-Wan’s chest aches. The ground crumbles away beneath him. He draws his lightsaber as he leaps away from the crevice.

Anakin follows him with a blow aimed at his head. The older Jedi barely parries, and stumbles as he lands.

 

They fight. Obi-Wan can feel the difference between this and the hours upon hours they would spend training to exhaustion. This was nothing like that. There were no teasing quips, no laughter at mistakes, no determined smirk on his friend’s face. Only rage. With every touch of their sabers, the ground around the two men crumbled away.

 

“I have failed you,” Obi-Wan says, the anguish in his chest leaking into his voice. “Anakin…” Their lightsabers clash again, locking this time as the taller man leans with all of his strength over his former mentor.

“This is the end for you, my master,” Anakin says through gritted teeth.

 

Obi-Wan’s heart stutters at the words. The two break apart and leap backward as a large crack opens the ground, deeper than any before. Heat rushes up from the fissure, singeing both men and choking them with sulfur.

 

Memories flood through the elder’s mind - every utterance of “ my Master” from that mouth since Anakin had become his padawan, every brush of those lips against his own stolen in the secrecy of their shared chambers, every hitched breath the younger man had earned from his lover with those words - crippling him.

 

The former Jedi took advantage of the emotional onslaught his opponent suffered, closing the gap between them. Obi-Wan barely had time to raise his blade to block a surely fatal blow. Instead, it only grazed his shoulder. Pain shot through him, but the wound was instantly cauterized, he would be fine.

 

The sand beneath their feet begins to rush down into lava bubbling up from the deep ravine, and Kenobi leaps to safety.

“It’s over. I have the high ground.”

Anakin’s face darkens and his lip curls in disgust. “You still underestimate me, _Master._ ” He springs, saber raised to strike.

“Don’t-”

 

Time slows. Obi-Wan can see every droplet of sweat on his former padawan’s temples. His mind races. Could he kill his best friend? The man he failed so completely. Was there even anything left of the Anakin he used to know, the compassionate, dedicated general he’d fought beside for so long? The man he called his friend, his lover?

No.

 

But instinct takes over in that second, the fight or flight compulsion steers his limbs in the move he never wanted to use against this man who has already lost so much. Obi-Wan’s eyes close as his blade meets flesh.

Anakin tumbles limbless down the side of the ravine, struggling to stay out of the lava. He fights the sand as he drags himself up the side of the gorge.

“You were the Chosen One,” Obi-Wan cries, as if maybe his desperation could change the rotted mind of his old friend. “It was said you would bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness.” His voice breaks at the sight of the younger man clawing at the black sand.

The Jedi Master, helpless, weak, and hopeless, kneels to pick up Anakin’s abandoned lightsaber. He stands, and although he wants to turn away without looking back at the man struggling, moaning, burning, he does. He wishes he hadn’t.

“I hate you!” Anakin screams. His bloodshot eyes are filled with complete and utter revulsion. Spittle flies from his blackened lips, his crazed rage taking control.

 

Obi-Wan squeezes his eyes shut, trying desperately to hold back tears. His voice is drowned out by the thunderous groan of the earth rending itself apart between them, shaking and shattering with his heart. “I _loved_ you!”

The ground falls away, taking the charred remains of the man’s best friend, true love, and greatest failure along with it into the earth’s roiling depths. For miles and miles, the ground splits, cracks, and disintegrates, tearing apart everything in its path. Water pours from the mouth of an underground river, the screams and hisses of it meeting the lava echoing in Obi-Wan’s ears. He runs blindly back to his ship and barely makes it off the ground. As he watches the grand canyon growing from his ship, the last shred of hope he had for Anakin dissipates and the cavity in the earth shudders to a halt. The planet is scarred by his own heartbreak.

 

As Vader steps mechanically around a corner on the Death Star and ignites his crimson saber, Kenobi wishes he had died with Anakin.

 


End file.
